Wednesday, April 1, 2009

danger garden on paper

In addition to the danger garden in our yard we’ve got another one growing inside the house, on paper, in my husband’s studio. I married an artist; Andrew makes pictures with mixed media. At top and the first image below are from a picture he did a few years ago titled “ballgame” it’s based on the ancient Aztec ballgames, in his picture the ball court is nestled in a jungle of amazing and dangerous looking plants. This work inspired an entire series of ballgame pictures, which can be seen at the Augen Gallery here in Portland.

Andrew comes up with great titles for his solo exhibitions; the last two were “on dark arctic deeps” and “baptism pictures with devils waiting.” The stories he tells are always intriguing and the people and animals that inhabit these worlds are remarkable. However, it’s his amazing plant shapes that really capture my imagination. Currently he’s working on pictures for June exhibition with Jen Erickson at the Lorinda Knight Gallery in Spokane. This new work has a wide array of interesting plants, flowering trees and even pollinating bats; the last image below is a sneak preview of that work, (I apologize for the picture quality - the danger gardener needs a new camera!). Maybe I’ll be able to talk him into letting me share a few images of the work in progress with you…and maybe someday he’ll have spare time to make some danger garden pictures for our walls…